Michelle!! You shoulda' left this line out!!!

[Arbo]

Obama and the Democrats think that we are most successful when we work together,

Oh please, Obama came into office (like many before him) believing he had a mandate to get 'his' things done. He ignored the other 'side', he pushed their ideas away, and didn't reach out to work with them, but rather worked to shut them up. He, like so many before him, came in a partisan, and acted as such. He was never a 'center aisle' guy, and will never be one.

 

[CJ 2.0]

He must also understand, as a business person with (hopefully) some fundamental understanding of an economy, that the money supply is limited. Therefore, any wealth he accumulates and stuffs away into foreign and domestic accounts to earn more income (because apparently success is measured by how long you can hold onto large amounts of money you don't have use for) directly contributes to extreme levels of wealth inequality. As I've said many times before, I don't begrudge people who earn a lot of income, I begrudge people who accumulate wealth, thereby drawing it out of the economy to sit in perpetuity.

Silly.

Money he squirrels away as wealth and holds in domestic institutions faciliatates leveraging by the deposit holder into loans. Money he invests in bonds provides funds to businesses to run their operations or purchase capital equipment. Money he invests in stock or other business is the same but with a greater risk profile. And money that he invests in foreign businesses and assets provides a revenue stream representing claims on foreign resources back into the country (or at least it would if your tax system wasn't so f***ed up as to try to double tax foreign-earned income which just causes businesses to leave these foreign assets abroad).

Accumulating wealth allows for resources to be shifted from consumption to investment, which is a key fundamental for increasing economic productivity and overall economic output going forward.

But to be fair, your fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works is very mainstream among the political left.

 

[zeusomally]

As the Bush Tax Cuts gave relatively equal tax cuts to every class of Income Tax payer, I see your argument as lame. But the point is not, and never has been, that the GOP is trying to eliminate all facets of a progressive tax formula. It is that the Democrats promote wealth envy, and advocate whatever added confiscatory powers they can harvest from such.

The Bush tax cuts were aimed at INCOME taxes, not PAYROLL taxes and it is well known(indisputable in fact) that Bush's tax cuts caused the relative wealth in this country to flow upwards. In other words, since middle-class individuals have such a small percentage of their wages expressed as taxable income to become with, the biggest benefits to be gained from an income tax cut will naturally goes to those with the most disposable(AGI) income-the wealthy. Are you seriously disputing that the BTCs redistributed wealth upwards?!!! If you aren't, be a man and admit that his tax cuts redistributed a higher proportion of the nation's wealth to the top 5%.
Now, why isn't this termed as "class-warfare"?!!

 

[hazlnut]

Disney. She gets it. You do not. Stop spamming, and how about posting some info supported by links to data or studies or well made arguments. Or make a good one yourself.

What he said is a personal observation. That's fair. We are discussing perceptions and messages.

I have not heard anything from the Romney camp that convinces me he understands my concerns.

Had Governor Romney started with the premise: The ACA was well-intended but flawed and these are the specific ways I would recommend congress fix it, then I would sit up an listen. All I hear is a lot of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

[zeusomally]

To advocate capital gains taxes to be raised so as to be more or less the same scale as income taxes is to cut off one's nose to spite their face It is essentially the same as wanting to raise taxes of business. You will get less investment, and less business. But most importantly, you can revoke the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250K per year, and you will reduce the annual deficit by all of 5% at best, from about $1.2 trillion to $1.14 trillion. Just what will have been achieved with that ?

Trust that I find post-modern liberalism most repugnant. Thanks, but no thanks, with regard to your diagnosis

First of all, 5% is nothing to sneeze at. I have seen Republicans get very lathered up and angry about budgetary outlays MUCH smaller than this.
Second of all, I think it is important to ask what values we are espousing as a nation if we tax capital at a lower rate than labor(and yes, any economic system a society implements needs to account for the morals and values of said society): What we are saying is that the type of money that is most "earned" by the wealthiest of our society, capital gains, should be taxed at a lower rate than the type of money earned by the middle class and poor, labor income. So how is that fair?!!
And you are wrong about the "wealth envy" that many liberals have. Our anger hinges on the fact that people like Romney who earn tens of millions of dollars a year pays a lower percentage in taxes than most middle class people do(because his wealth comes largely from capital gains and because the business interests in congress have lobbied for plenty of loopholes for him to drive his money truck through)! We are pissed off because we currently have some of the lowest tax rates we have ever seen in this countries history and the conservatives are obsessed with lowering taxes for the wealthy even more! We are also pissed off because the promised conservative economic revival that would occur if we deregulated our banks, broke the unions, partook in global free trade, lowered taxes, and redistributed wealth upwards has not come to pass. It's a failed policy. It's just a ploy for the wealthy and powerful to concentrate more wealth and power in their hands. Can't you see that?! Can't you see that your party has been hijacked by corporations?

 

[Eighty Deuce]

The Bush tax cuts were aimed at INCOME taxes, not PAYROLL taxes and it is well known(indisputable in fact) that Bush's tax cuts caused the relative wealth in this country to flow upwards. In other words, since middle-class individuals have such a small percentage of their wages expressed as taxable income to become with, the biggest benefits to be gained from an income tax cut will naturally goes to those with the most disposable(AGI) income-the wealthy. Are you seriously disputing that the BTCs redistributed wealth upwards?!!! If you aren't, be a man and admit that his tax cuts redistributed a higher proportion of the nation's wealth to the top 5%.
Now, why isn't this termed as "class-warfare"?!!

So the option is to not be a man and disagree, or be a man and agree.

I see your post as being foolish and uninformed. Opinions can reach a point where they are so absurd it is not worth the effort to refute.

You want to hold onto a plethora of liberal mantra, offering nothing but "because I say so" proof, but then challenge others to waste their time debunking you, or "be a man" and agree.

Enjoy yourself.

 

[CJ 2.0]

The Bush tax cuts were aimed at INCOME taxes, not PAYROLL taxes and it is well known(indisputable in fact) that Bush's tax cuts caused the relative wealth in this country to flow upwards. In other words, since middle-class individuals have such a small percentage of their wages expressed as taxable income to become with, the biggest benefits to be gained from an income tax cut will naturally goes to those with the most disposable(AGI) income-the wealthy. Are you seriously disputing that the BTCs redistributed wealth upwards?!!! If you aren't, be a man and admit that his tax cuts redistributed a higher proportion of the nation's wealth to the top 5%.
Now, why isn't this termed as "class-warfare"?!!

Let's talk about "distribute" for a second, just so we're clear about what everyone is talking about.

Now, when people talk about redistributing to the rich, they invariably seem to point to the fact that over the past decade people at the top earned more, while people at the bottom were more or less flat (the "indisputable fact").

BUT, if we are talking about redistribution, the issue is NOT whether the rich person earned more but whether the rich person earned more at the expense of the middle class person.

If "middle class person" makes 10k and is taked at 20%, and "rich person" makes 50k and is taxed at 25% (both average rates), then the middle class person takes home 8k and the rich person takes home 37.5k. Now, if a tax cut is intorduced cutting both people's taxes down but the rich person adds to his income over the decade but the middle class person doesn't, the rich person will have a take-home in excess of what he did 10 years prior. But this would be true for the middle class person too, since his taxes went down as well.

"Redistributing a higher proportion" is gerrymandering nonsense.

Right now you have a car and I have a car. over 10 years, you accumulate an additional cell phone and a small condo. I accumulate a mansion and several small islands in the carribean. We have not "redistributed" anything in spite of this shift of a "higher proportion of income" to the "rich".

What you are doing, which is a common dem theme in all this, is to focus on pulling the "other" - the "rich" - down rather than focusing exclusively on your own state or the state of the special interest you are supporting.

Focus on whether the middle class person has more stuff (goods and services, necessity and luxury) than he used to and not on whether he is relatively better or worse off when compared to the Jonses.

Otherwise, the argument is stupid.

 

[Hicup]

Thanks to leverage, 10 of roughly 67 major deals by Bain Capital during Romney’s watch produced about 70 percent of the firm’s profits. Four of those 10 deals, as well as others, later wound up in bankruptcy. It’s worth examining some of them to understand Romney’s investment style at Bain Capital.

Romney

If Romeny ran the government like he did at Bain we'd ALL BE BETTER OFF in the long run, trust me on this. Companies fail for a myriad of reasons. I've been in business for over 23 years in my field, I analyze numbers, design large computer infrastructures; I have presented to umpteen million CEO's CFO's and executives my entire career, and sometimes companies just fail or downsize (We call it correcting) which in my business we also call "adjusting to market conditions".


I'm still not convinced that letting AIG and the banking industry go broke wouldn't have been a good idea based on my experience over the years, however, I am at least willing to forget the problem since it's history now. That said, GM and Chrysler was a completely different story, so too are the hundreds of townships and counties that are on the verge of bankruptcy now. These types of entities need to feel pain, they NEED to correct themselves, and you know what. If left to die, they would. The result is that others would learn from their mistakes. The long term good would far outwieght any temporary bad that would come as a result.

The entities are constantly being bailed out so no one has felt any REAL pain in a very long time, maybe as much as three generation in the USA. That's a long time in political years. We've simply forgotten a very important lesson about capitalism and we are now living that example. Is it even savable? Yeah I believe it is, but it's getting dangerously close to the point of no return where not only the US economy will comlpletely collapse, but the entire worlds economy will.


Tim-

 

[zeusomally]

So the option is to not be a man and disagree, or be a man and agree.

I see your post as being foolish and uninformed. Opinions can reach a point where they are so absurd it is not worth the effort to refute.

You want to hold onto a plethora of liberal mantra, offering nothing but "because I say so" proof, but then challenge others to waste their time debunking you, or "be a man" and agree.

Enjoy yourself.

Well, it was you who brought up how wrong-headed the Democrats were for redistributing wealth. All I am attempting to do is point out to you that that is exactly what the conservatives did with the Bush Tax Cuts--they redistributed wealth in the country. How is that "I say so" proof? If you are not aware of the way that the BTCs redistributed wealth, I'd be more than happy to reference you to many analyses that demonstrate just that. Why, when liberals want taxes to be raised on the wealthy are we accused of "class-warfare" and "socialism", but when the conservatives push for tax policies to cut taxes for the wealthy and redistribute income to the wealthy it is "good for the economy". I'm sorry if I have insulted you. I certainly didn't mean to do so. But I contend that my argument was logically sound and I am more than willing to discuss it in greater detail with you.

 

[CJ 2.0]

Well, it was you who brought up how wrong-headed the Democrats were for redistributing wealth. All I am attempting to do is point out to you that that is exactly what the conservatives did with the Bush Tax Cuts--they redistributed wealth in the country. How is that "I say so" proof? If you are not aware of the way that the BTCs redistributed wealth, I'd be more than happy to reference you to many analyses that demonstrate just that. Why, when liberals want taxes to be raised on the wealthy are we accused of "class-warfare" and "socialism", but when the conservatives push for tax policies to cut taxes for the wealthy and redistribute income to the wealthy it is "good for the economy". I'm sorry if I have insulted you. I certainly didn't mean to do so. But I contend that my argument was logically sound and I am more than willing to discuss it in greater detail with you.

They did. From the young people who are going to be saddled with paying for it to every other American who pays taxes who saw a reduction in rates. And with the vast, vast majority of those funds not going to "the rich".

Now the young see benefits from this, of course, from increased economic output and more disposable income for their parents, but the democrat reverse robin hood depiction of those tax cuts is #1 a lie and #2 a disingenuous window into their worldview which says that money confiscated by the government is permanently and legitimately the "people's" to do with as they please and ending that ongoing practice of confiscation is "giving" something to those who had their incomes confiscated by govenrment.

"Reducing tax expenditures" as a code-word for raising taxes has to be the most orwellian, delusional, offensive phrase I have seen come out of political discourse in a long, long time.

 

[apdst]

Where is your evidence that Obama is calling for higher taxes(other than rolling back the BTCs for those making over 250k)?

Obamacare is a new tax on everyone.

Also, Obama wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire for businesses. Even small businesses.

Which government regulations, specifically, has he proposed that are so terrible and detrimental to our society?

Well, I never said, "detrimental". That's your wording, not mine. But, as to the regulations...

Heritage Foundation:

Which policies/proposals of Obama are increasing government intrusion into our private lives?

Obamacare, for starters. Frank-Dodd has made it almost impossible for poor people to get a credit card, giving rise to the payday loan outfits that the Libbos hate so much.

Which constitutional rights has he threatened to infringe?

The 2nd Amendment.

PolitiFact | Barack Obama coming after guns, 'under the radar,' NRA says

The 1st Amendment

Obama birth control ruling infringes on 1st Amendment

And what, specifically, do you suggest that Obama do to increase jobs?

He could have not implemented the drilling ban, shut down coal mines, shut down coal fired power plants and stalled the Keystone pipeline

You threw out a whole ton of very general accusations in your last post and now it is time that you sprout some nuts, get specific and spell your arguments out with some supporting evidence. Once you do so I will be more than happy to discuss the issues in detail with you and I think we can have a great conversation.

There are you specifics and I already know you're going to defend every one of Obama's policies, wich is irrelevant, because the fact remains that he has brought us, higher taxes, more government regulations, more government intrusion in our private lives, more infringement on our constitutional rights, fewer jobs and more welfare?

 

[zeusomally]

Let's talk about "distribute" for a second, just so we're clear about what everyone is talking about.

Now, when people talk about redistributing to the rich, they invariably seem to point to the fact that over the past decade people at the top earned more, while people at the bottom were more or less flat (the "indisputable fact").

BUT, if we are talking about redistribution, the issue is NOT whether the rich person earned more but whether the rich person earned more at the expense of the middle class person.

If "middle class person" makes 10k and is taked at 20%, and "rich person" makes 50k and is taxed at 25% (both average rates), then the middle class person takes home 8k and the rich person takes home 37.5k. Now, if a tax cut is intorduced cutting both people's taxes down but the rich person adds to his income over the decade but the middle class person doesn't, the rich person will have a take-home in excess of what he did 10 years prior. But this would be true for the middle class person too, since his taxes went down as well.

"Redistributing a higher proportion" is gerrymandering nonsense.

Right now you have a car and I have a car. over 10 years, you accumulate an additional cell phone and a small condo. I accumulate a mansion and several small islands in the carribean. We have not "redistributed" anything in spite of this shift of a "higher proportion of income" to the "rich".

What you are doing, which is a common dem theme in all this, is to focus on pulling the "other" - the "rich" - down rather than focusing exclusively on your own state or the state of the special interest you are supporting.

Focus on whether the middle class person has more stuff (goods and services, necessity and luxury) than he used to and not on whether he is relatively better or worse off when compared to the Jonses.

Otherwise, the argument is stupid.

I'm a bit confused by your argument, but I think I get the gist of what you are saying. First of all, the way wealth is distributed in a society IS important. Money is not finite. In any given economy at any given point in time, there is a FIXED amount of money to be had and the way we set up our economy(regulations, taxes, gov't spending etc) determines, in large part, how that limited pot of money is divided up("distributed"). If the system is set up in such a way that a larger percentage of the total available amount of money is increasingly being placed into fewer and fewer hands it has extremely serious implications for the society as a whole.
Here is just one(I can give more later, if you'd like) of the problems that can result: 1)Money is largely equal to power in our current political system. The more money you have, the more access you get to politician and lobbyists and as money becomes increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, the more those same hands can influence the political process to their advantage. And that, I think you can agree, is bad for any democracy.
So, in summary, just because the TOTAL(absolute) amount of money has increased, it is still important to consider how that money is being distributed, because it has very real implications to the health and viability of our democracy.

 

[Eighty Deuce]

Well, it was you who brought up how wrong-headed the Democrats were for redistributing wealth. All I am attempting to do is point out to you that that is exactly what the conservatives did with the Bush Tax Cuts--they redistributed wealth in the country. How is that "I say so" proof? If you are not aware of the way that the BTCs redistributed wealth, I'd be more than happy to reference you to many analyses that demonstrate just that. Why, when liberals want taxes to be raised on the wealthy are we accused of "class-warfare" and "socialism", but when the conservatives push for tax policies to cut taxes for the wealthy and redistribute income to the wealthy it is "good for the economy". I'm sorry if I have insulted you. I certainly didn't mean to do so. But I contend that my argument was logically sound and I am more than willing to discuss it in greater detail with you.

Here. From 2010. IRS numbers. It includes the BTC's:

Note that the top 5% earned 34.73% of all income, with their increment being all those who had income above $159,619. annually. Yet paid 58.72% of all income tax collected.

 

[apdst]

The Bush tax cuts were aimed at INCOME taxes, not PAYROLL taxes and it is well known(indisputable in fact) that Bush's tax cuts caused the relative wealth in this country to flow upwards. In other words, since middle-class individuals have such a small percentage of their wages expressed as taxable income to become with, the biggest benefits to be gained from an income tax cut will naturally goes to those with the most disposable(AGI) income-the wealthy. Are you seriously disputing that the BTCs redistributed wealth upwards?!!! If you aren't, be a man and admit that his tax cuts redistributed a higher proportion of the nation's wealth to the top 5%.
Now, why isn't this termed as "class-warfare"?!!

No it didn't! That's impossible!

If you're going to spew stuff, spew stuff that actually makes sense.

 

[zeusomally]

They did. From the young people who are going to be saddled with paying for it to every other American who pays taxes who saw a reduction in rates. And with the vast, vast majority of those funds not going to "the rich".

Now the young see benefits from this, of course, from increased economic output and more disposable income for their parents, but the democrat reverse robin hood depiction of those tax cuts is #1 a lie and #2 a disingenuous window into their worldview which says that money confiscated by the government is permanently and legitimately the "people's" to do with as they please and ending that ongoing practice of confiscation is "giving" something to those who had their incomes confiscated by govenrment.

"Reducing tax expenditures" as a code-word for raising taxes has to be the most orwellian, delusional, offensive phrase I have seen come out of political discourse in a long, long time.

So taxes are "confiscation"? And since when has "reducing tax expenditures" been used as a code-word for raising taxes? Who said that? I certainly didn't say that! Reducing tax expenditures, to me, means cutting the budget. Anyhow, I don't feel a need to defend it until you can tell me who is using the term that way. Also, I was confused by your first sentence. What are you referring to in that sentence that I said earlier?

 

[hazlnut]

As the Bush Tax Cuts gave relatively equal tax cuts to every class of Income Tax payer, I see your argument as lame. But the point is not, and never has been, that the GOP is trying to eliminate all facets of a progressive tax formula. It is that the Democrats promote wealth envy, and advocate whatever added confiscatory powers they can harvest from such.

There's a difference between basic fairness and wealth envy. That 'wealth envy' talking point is lame because you are discrediting people who are likely in the same boat as you and asking questions that you would agree are reasonable. Like, Romney says in his tax policy that he will close loopholes.... but he is always vague when asked which loopholes specifically. Is that 'wealth envy' to want reassurances that the next President will not favor one group over another?

Reagan closed loopholes and raise taxes. Because that's what needed to be done. We need to look at any aspect of the tax code that does not incentivize meaningful reinvestment--any kind of tax break or any scheme that only helps the individual pull money out tax free to be moved off shore is not beneficial.

The tax code should incentivize investment, but not allow for capital to be easily moved to foreign markets.

Off course the changes we're talking about directly effect the 1%, some of whom are in congress. Why would they want to change the tax code and eliminate loopholes they may use?

 

[zeusomally]

No it didn't! That's impossible!

If you're going to spew stuff, spew stuff that actually makes sense.

So before I respond to you, and I most certainly will, I want to make sure I understand what you are saying so there is no confusion: Are you saying that the Bush Tax Cuts did not result in the wealthiest 5% of wage earners in this country holding a higher amount of wealth relative to the other 95%?

 

[IndepCentristMA]

You must be kidding me!!!! For a President and a party who's spent months and months villifying Mitt Romney based on how much money he has, this is such an absurd statement. She shoulda' left it out. And anyone who says Mitt Romney hasn't made a huge and wonderful difference in people's lives doesn't know jack.

Comments?

I saw that and thought the same thing... There were several others during that speech which had the same effect as well...

Her parents taught her if you work hard you could become successful, and there was nothing wrong with that...

"But when Barack started telling me about his family – that's when I knew I had found a kindred spirit, someone whose values and upbringing were so much like mine."

Um... Barack's dad was a wealthy member of the Kenyan Government... who went to Harvard... Barack's mom was part of an elite family, connected to 5 former presidents, that was able to send her to the University of HI for college... That's not exactly without money...


"And when my brother and I finally made it to college, nearly all of our tuition came from student loans and grants.
But my dad still had to pay a tiny portion of that tuition himself.
And every semester, he was determined to pay that bill right on time, even taking out loans when he fell short.
He was so proud to be sending his kids to college...and he made sure we never missed a registration deadline because his check was late.
You see, for my dad, that's what it meant to be a man."

So, for your dad paying bills on time was what it meant to be a man... now your husband hasn't paid the US Government's bills on time, he's overblown the budget... and so many men in this country can't pay their bills, because they're out of work... are they not men?


"Like so many of us, that was the measure of his success in life – being able to earn a decent living that allowed him to support his family."

and now under your husband's administration... less people are able to do that...

"They didn't begrudge anyone else's success or care that others had much more than they did...in fact, they admired it.
They simply believed in that fundamental American promise that, even if you don't start out with much, if you work hard and do what you're supposed to do, then you should be able to build a decent life for yourself and an even better life for your kids and grandkids.
That's how they raised us...that's what we learned from their example."

Funny... now your husband is creating fostering class envy, and pointing his finger at the "top 2%"... so what example did he take?

Again, nowadays, under your husband's administration, so many people did what they were supposed to, but are out of work and can't build a life...



"And I've seen how the issues that come across a President's desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer...the judgment calls where the stakes are so high, and there is no margin for error."

Did she just say he makes the tough decisions, a la President Bush... something liberals still harp on to this day about?!?!?!?!?!?!?


"That's how he brought our economy from the brink of collapse to creating jobs again – jobs you can raise a family on, good jobs right here in the United States of America."

Um... what jobs are those?


"When it comes to giving our kids the education they deserve, Barack knows that like me and like so many of you, he never could've attended college without financial aid.
And believe it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage.
We were so young, so in love, and so in debt.
That's why Barack has fought so hard to increase student aid and keep interest rates down, because he wants every young person to fulfill their promise and be able to attend college without a mountain of debt."

Barack didn't go on financial aid, someone else paid for his educaiton...

However, it must have been nice to HAVE a mortgage... most college graduates can't even get a job, nevermind a mortgage... and they're further in debt during this administration than ever before... Collective student loan debt in this country is $1T, and recent college graduates have one of the highest unemployment rates of any of the individual groups....


"He's the same man who started his career by turning down high paying jobs and instead working in struggling neighborhoods where a steel plant had shut down, fighting to rebuild those communities and get folks back to work...because for Barack, success isn't about how much money you make, it's about the difference you make in people's lives.
He's the same man who, when our girls were first born, would anxiously check their cribs every few minutes to ensure they were still breathing, proudly showing them off to everyone we knew.
That's the man who sits down with me and our girls for dinner nearly every night, patiently answering their questions about issues in the news, and strategizing about middle school friendships.
That's the man I see in those quiet moments late at night, hunched over his desk, poring over the letters people have sent him.
The letter from the father struggling to pay his bills...from the woman dying of cancer whose insurance company won't cover her care...from the young person with so much promise but so few opportunities.
I see the concern in his eyes...and I hear the determination in his voice as he tells me, "You won't believe what these folks are going through, Michelle...it's not right. We've got to keep working to fix this. We've got so much more to do."


And yet, when we heard the stories from Mitt Romney's past, he took the high paying jobs, but he was still there helping people... And, there were actual people there at the convention to tell the stories themselves... people who really had their life effected by Romney, and were there in person to share the stories... REAL AND ACTUAL PEOPLE ROMNEY HAD HELPED... from the man whose daughter Mitt had located, to the people from his parish who had seen him there at the hospital bed with their children...

We havent seen any of those people here with Obama... we have to take Michelle's word for it... None of these people from Obama's past recognize him for anything...

People have done extensive searches into Obama's past, and can barely recover any information...

Yet, he's "helped" people... and he's deeply concerned about letters he has recieved... Yet we hear far more stories about former president Bush still getting off his behind and going to visit wounded veterans in the Hospitals, and people with cancer, and out reading with children from the community...

We only hear about Obama reading to his own daughters and having people to dinner... I'm not saying he doesn't ever do that... it just seems a lot less than what president Bush did, is doing now, and what Romney has done throughout his life...


There's a lot that Michelle Obama said last night that didn't add up, and didn't match the message of her husband's campaign in 2008 or 2012... or reflect the accuracy of his record in office...


My girlfriend said it best when she popped in to see a bit of it...

"Oh, please... give it up... I'm not buying the crocodile tears..."

 

[apdst]

So before I respond to you, and I most certainly will, I want to make sure I understand what you are saying so there is no confusion: Are you saying that the Bush Tax Cuts did not result in the wealthiest 5% of wage earners in this country holding a higher amount of wealth relative to the other 95%?

That's not what you said, but kep on keepin' on.

 

[zeusomally]

Here. From 2010. IRS numbers. It includes the BTC's:

Note that the top 5% earned 34.73% of all income, with their increment being all those who had income above $159,619. annually. Yet paid 58.72% of all income tax collected.

I'm not quite sure the point you are making with this chart, but I'll assume you are arguing that the wealthy are paying more than is fair. Not sure what your bigger point is here.
But let's look at this chart. First of all, this merely highlights income. You must never forget that this does not reflect total WEALTH, which include investments, business equity, real estate holdings and other assets. If we look at this picture in terms of total wealth, what we find is that the top 5% of the US population held 68% of the nations financial wealth and 59% of the economy's net worth.
So this brings me to my next point, which is at the heart of why that 5% has so much more of the total wealth to begin with: There are two types of money: LUXURY money and NEEDS money. And this is where most conservative thinkers tend to shut down their minds, but I encourage you to listen to what I am about to say and the implications it has in the real lives of very real people:
A poor or middle-class person spends almost all of their money to meet basic necessities(food, rent, clothing, shelter, transportation etc.) and has very little LUXURY money left over. Those who are more wealthy meet the basic need very easily, and have lots of LUXURY money that they can use to buy second homes, nice cars, vacations, and to invest in holdings which produce capital gains. It makes perfect moral sense to me that LUXURY money would be taxed at a higher rate than NEEDS money.

 

[Eighty Deuce]

There's a difference between basic fairness and wealth envy. That 'wealth envy' talking point is lame because you are discrediting people who are likely in the same boat as you and asking questions that you would agree are reasonable. Like, Romney says in his tax policy that he will close loopholes.... but he is always vague when asked which loopholes specifically. Is that 'wealth envy' to want reassurances that the next President will not favor one group over another?

Reagan closed loopholes and raise taxes. Because that's what needed to be done. We need to look at any aspect of the tax code that does not incentivize meaningful reinvestment--any kind of tax break or any scheme that only helps the individual pull money out tax free to be moved off shore is not beneficial.

The tax code should incentivize investment, but not allow for capital to be easily moved to foreign markets.

Off course the changes we're talking about directly effect the 1%, some of whom are in congress. Why would they want to change the tax code and eliminate loopholes they may use?

And what is Obama's plan ? Romney does not have to put out a mega-detailed plan. Frankly it would be foolish to unless Obama had one already out, which he does not.

Regardless, you have Obama's own Simson-Bowles Commission, which cut rates for every income bracket. And closed loopholes, so as to increase net revenue. And also recommended three-fold reductions in spending for every revenue increase.

So the concept, and template, are there. The issue should be who do you believe is most saying what you agree with, and then do you believe they will do what they say. This is the Democrat, Erskine Bowles, of "Simpson Bowles". one year ago, Sep 2011. Its a quick listen, and he talks about Ryan and Obama. Not Romney, I agree, but this is why Romney picked Ryan.

 

[zeusomally]

That's not what you said, but kep on keepin' on.

Well, wait a second. That is what I said. Here is my quote from the earlier post which YOU highlighted in responding to me: " it is well known(indisputable in fact) that Bush's tax cuts caused the relative wealth in this country to flow upwards". Isn't this the quote you were taking issue with? If not, please cite the quote that you are disagreeing with.

 

[JRog]

.

But to be fair, your fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works is very mainstream among the political left.

To be fair, I'm not the one who thinks that capital investment creates demand for goods and services.

I am also not the one who thinks the decision to hire people is based on taxes.

 

[CJ 2.0]

I'm a bit confused by your argument, but I think I get the gist of what you are saying. First of all, the way wealth is distributed in a society IS important. Money is not finite. In any given economy at any given point in time, there is a FIXED amount of money to be had and the way we set up our economy(regulations, taxes, gov't spending etc) determines, in large part, how that limited pot of money is divided up("distributed").

Ok - I'm sorry if I got a bit wonky, and I'll try to be as straightforward as possible.

Re your two statements here, the first point is right that the way money is distributed is important, but it doesn't say much. It is important that there are investors. It is important that poor people don't starve on the streets. And it is important that money doesn't allow wealthy people to crowd poor people out of necessities. But all that is a balancing act of conflicting interests. My point is only that the way money is distributed can have a radical impact on the amount of wealth that a society creates. And wealth creation is the only thing that keeps people working - at all levels.

Re the money is not finite point, I'll go you one better. Money is a fiction.

Money represents a claim on goods and services produced by others. Instead of me trading an hour of legal services or an hour of cleaning services or a bucket of fish for my haircut, I can take my bucket of fish, sell it at the market, and use that money to buy a haircut from you. The important point here is that money is important in that it facilitates the exchange, but other than that it is irrelevant. What matters are the RESOURCES involved - the labour; the fish. And these resources are NOT fixed.

Through incentives and returns and investments and ingenuity, we can make land produce more crops, we can make an hour of labour generate more surgical procedures, and we can make a computer do more computations.

So from strictly that point of view, it is important that government facilitate wealth creation rather than impede it (whether through incentives or legislative/regulatory fiat).

But there is another point of view which is more philosophical. This goes, I think, to the core of the disagreement between Obama and the republicans (even though I don't think liberals truly get the first point). this other point of view is that a man or woman who creates something through the sweat of his or her brow owns the fruits of his or her labours. Since the log cabin would not exist but for the man who spent weeks cutting down trees and building the structure, it would be morally unjust to view that cabin as anything but his. Now this view is an absolutist exageration, since we all know "no man is an island" and all that, but the disagreement between the "eat the rich" democrats and the republicans here seem to be about how much of the log cabin belongs to the person who built it. Except the log cabin got sold along the way and is accounted for as income.

And from my perspective, while taxation is certainly legitimate, you cannot say that because a person drives on roads and bridges that he didn't build means that the govenrment should be able to confiscate as much of a person's labours at it pkleases in order to pander to whatever interest group it pleases, or that a government decision to stop confiscating so much of that labour is an "expenditure of government funds" - it is not the government's money. The govenrment just takes it from the same person year after year out of everything that the person produces.

And that, to me, was why the "you didn't build that" speach was so offensive. Not because I pretedn he meant to say you didn't build your business, cause I know he meant you didn't build the roads and bridges. But he also meant to snarkily say that "you think it's cause you're just so smart" and "you think it's cause you worked hard". the whole tone of that, and the democrats' entire campaign, is about how the "rich" (most of whom are not even remotely rich) owe it to the govenrment to allow the government a blank cheque to spend the money they earned however the government wants, and that those who are the beneficiaries of this lagresse should not feel bad at all about taking the fruits of others' labours to spend on whatever they want to spend it on. It is class warfare pandering at its worse and it is just offensive.

If the system is set up in such a way that a larger percentage of the total available amount of money is increasingly being placed into fewer and fewer hands it has extremely serious implications for the society as a whole.

Not really. Compare the poor in, say 1900 to the poor in 2012. What are life expectancies? What are levels of comfort (average size of dwelling; HVAC; refridgeration; telephones; computers; mobility)? What are health metrics? You cannot possibly say that just because, say, a greater percentage of wealth is in the hands of the top 1% or 5% today than in 1900 that the poor are therefore worse off today, cause they are unambiguously better off.

Here is just one(I can give more later, if you'd like) of the problems that can result: 1)Money is largely equal to power in our current political system. The more money you have, the more access you get to politician and lobbyists and as money becomes increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, the more those same hands can influence the political process to their advantage. And that, I think you can agree, is bad for any democracy.

not really going to fight you there. Your political system is pretty f***ed up, and yeah, you have been running a relatively corporatist economy for a long time now. At the same time, I don't wholly agree with you. The top "1%" is, what, 3 million people? That's not "a few hands" in the way that the Roman republic was goverened by a few hundred families. That's a whole lot of hands. And those hands have radically, RADICALLY different points of view (The Kochs vs Soros; that Sheldon Anderson guy vs Michael Moore and the rest of the hollywood elite). And you still see in the United States class mobility (both upward and downward) that is unrivalled in human history (absent massive disruptive change such as warfare or climate conditions). So those "1%" with the money to burn very often come from starting points that were the same as those in the 99% or otherwise adopt those views for ideological (the Kennedys) or cynical political (Obama 2012) reasons.

So, in summary, just because the TOTAL(absolute) amount of money has increased, it is still important to consider how that money is being distributed, because it has very real implications to the health and viability of our democracy.

That's an argument for limitations on political contributions and spending on political speech. It is not an argument for confiscating an extra 5% of the wheat harvest from successful farmers so that you can exchange the wheat for money to subsidize solar pannel production or give to some punk kid to party while taking an art degree for 4 years.

 

[Eighty Deuce]

I'm not quite sure the point you are making with this chart, but I'll assume you are arguing that the wealthy are paying more than is fair. Not sure what your bigger point is here.
But let's look at this chart. First of all, this merely highlights income. You must never forget that this does not reflect total WEALTH, which include investments, business equity, real estate holdings and other assets. If we look at this picture in terms of total wealth, what we find is that the top 5% of the US population held 68% of the nations financial wealth and 59% of the economy's net worth.
So this brings me to my next point, which is at the heart of why that 5% has so much more of the total wealth to begin with: There are two types of money: LUXURY money and NEEDS money. And this is where most conservative thinkers tend to shut down their minds, but I encourage you to listen to what I am about to say and the implications it has in the real lives of very real people:
A poor or middle-class person spends almost all of their money to meet basic necessities(food, rent, clothing, shelter, transportation etc.) and has very little LUXURY money left over. Those who are more wealthy meet the basic need very easily, and have lots of LUXURY money that they can use to buy second homes, nice cars, vacations, and to invest in holdings which produce capital gains. It makes perfect moral sense to me that LUXURY money would be taxed at a higher rate than NEEDS money.

First, it debunked your notion about redistribution. The rich pay way progressively way much more still under the BTC's.

You want some wealth ? Go get some. You need not take it from anyone. Just create it.